


War, Love, Timelessness

by quicheand



Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Immortality, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:23:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5882605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicheand/pseuds/quicheand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things last forever. Others don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War, Love, Timelessness

On the day the fighting broke out, Jonghyun didn't wake up until late afternoon. He opened his eyes to a flood of sunlight, tinting his bedcovers gold and making the room uncomfortably warm. Jonghyun kicked at his blankets until his legs were exposed; it was only spring, but on sunny days it got hot if he forgot to open a window.

He lay there, too lazy to move, until the heat that had accumulated in the spot under his back became too much to bear, and then he sat up and pushed the covers all the way off.

He climbed out of bed, rubbing at his eyes, and pulled on a shirt. It wasn't until he padded over to the window to pull down the shade that he noticed anything out of the ordinary.

There were no clouds of black smoke, no crumbling and toppled buildings, no dead or injured bodies in the street. But the streets were empty, not a single person in sight. Even Mr. Hwang's bakery across the street was closed, the windows boarded up, and Jonghyun had never known Mr. Hwang to close up before sundown. No explicit signs of violence or fighting, but Jonghyun knew, all the same, that the war everyone had been fearing for months had started.

Jonghyun went into the living room and turned on the TV.

But of course there was nothing on but news of the war. Jonghyun switched the TV off again and went back to bed.

 

 

Key couldn't stop checking his watch. He'd woken up with a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, and somehow had just known something bad was going to happen today, and what else could that be but the start of the war? He fidgeted in his seat on the bus (10:32 am), and in line at the grocery store as he clenched and unclenched his fingers around the handle of his shopping basket (11:04 am), and was now sitting restlessly on the couch after he'd gotten home and put away the groceries (11:48 am). He folded his knees up to his chest as he stared at the news without really seeing anything and rested his chin on the pillow of his arms.

Key looked at his watch again. When was the war going to start? He knew it was a stupid thing to think, but he couldn't calm down, couldn't stop thinking about it. He couldn't say exactly why, but he felt sure that it would be today, and if it was going to happen anyway, he'd rather it be sooner than later so he could just stop worrying about it. It was probably selfish of him, but everyone was selfish anyway, he rationalized; at least he was honest about it.

It finally happened at 1:13. A marquee of red text cut across the television screen, accompanied by a voice: “We now interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important emergency broadcast,” it said. There was a barely concealed panic underneath the forced professional tone.

Key breathed out in relief, and lay back, sprawled out on the couch. He stared at the ceiling for a minute; then a thought occurred to him, and he tensed again. He shouldn't feel relieved that the war had started. An uncomfortable, restless feeling started up in the pit of his stomach, and he sat up, the brief reprieve from the urge to fidget now over.

 

 

The thing was, this wasn't the first war Jonghyun had seen. People were always fighting amongst themselves, and sometimes fights got big, and more and more people got dragged in in an attempt to solve the dispute. Jonghyun had already lived through—well, he didn't know the exact number, as he'd stopped keeping count sometime during the string of mentally unbalanced dictators of the world two centuries ago. The point was, Jonghyun had been through wars before, and this little catfight was nothing new. 

It was boring, in fact; not so much that the actual fighting was boring, but Jonghyun hated how everything else always seemed to come screeching to a halt during wartime. It seemed silly, didn't it, that everything fun and good should be put on hold just because some people—people Jonghyun had never even met, people who would have died in a few decades anyway—were getting shot a few miles away.

Wars were boring. Jonghyun had mostly slept through the past few wars, and he planned to do the same for this one.

 

 

Key was aware that the dark circles under his eyes were reaching unprecedented depths. But there was a war going on and that meant half the people in town had packed up their belongings and left, and that meant he couldn't even go and talk to his therapist. It was really quite worrisome; there was a war going on and Key had no one to talk to.

He had an urge sometimes, a fleeting desire to open his window, lean outside, and yell something nonsensical to the emptied city. He found himself planning out what he would say once, and scoffed to himself.

“I'm not actually insane, okay?” he said, aloud. Then he realized that he was talking to himself in his empty apartment, and perhaps that wasn't so different than yelling to no one out his window, and scowled. He sat down, sullenly, on the couch.

Eventually he realized he was tapping his fingers in a steady rhythm on the worn fabric cushion, and that he couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd started. He let out a groan of frustration and pulled his knees up, burying his face in them and lacing his traitorous fingers together over his head.

 

 

Time passed; Jonghyun did not know exactly how much. Days did not matter much—weeks, months, and years did not matter much—when you knew you had yet a limitless number of them left to live.

He woke occasionally, sometimes to silence. Other times, he heard the sounds of frenzied yelling or marching in the streets outside, the noises of wartime reaching him even before he opened his eyes. A couple of times, Jonghyun got out of bed. Once, he went outside, ambled up to a man in a crisp officer's uniform standing on the sidewalk.

“What's going on?” he asked, nodding at the uniformed men pacing the street in neat, orderly rows.

“Just more drills,” said the officer. “Every day, more drills.” He gazed out somewhere beyond the dusty buildings, past the boarded up windows and untraveled roads. “They say it won't be long now before the fighting reaches us.” Then he turned to Jonghyun. “You should get out now, while you still can,” he said. “Go south; most of the town's already headed that way. Frankly, I'm surprised you're still here.”

Jonghyun made a vague, considering noise and stuck his hands in his pockets. “No, that's okay,” he said, lips twisting upward into an easy smile. “I think I'll stay here for a while longer.” 

He backed toward the door of his building, offering the officer a cheery salute. As he turned to open the door, Jonghyun thought of the look on that man's face. It had been awful, equal parts concern, disapproval, and disbelief. Jonghyun chuckled to himself.

 

 

There came a point where Key just couldn't take it anymore. He could not handle for one more second staying cooped up in his apartment with no company but his own, neurotic self, and growing steadily more and more so. When the announcement came over the news that room was being offered in a safe house at the edge of town, Key sprang to his feet, folded a few changes of clothes into a bag, tucking toiletries between the layers of fabric, and headed out without a second thought.

By the time he was joining the sparse crowd in front of the house though, the do-something motivation had largely faded, and he found himself tapping nervously away again, fingers twiddling at the side of his leg. What was he doing here? Key looked through the people gathered there, but couldn't see anyone he recognized, or even thought he might want to get to know.

They waited there for a long time. Key's legs started to ache, and his shoulder hurt where the strap of his bag dug into it. It had been early evening when Key locked up his apartment and set out, but it had been dark for at least an hour by the time they finally started letting people in. Even that was slow; they toddled forward at a snail's pace, single-file, waiting for the officials at the door to collect each person's basic information before letting them in.

Finally, forty-three minutes after the line had started moving, Key was giving his name and age at the door and accepting a small silver key in return. He was ushered into the hall, where two narrow staircases led up and down; beyond them, the walls of the corridor were lined with terribly plain, nondescript doors, spaced at regular intervals as far as the eye could see. Key glanced at the plastic tag on his keyring; someone had hastily scrawled a large number 318 on it. Key adjusted the strap of his bag across his chest and made his way up the stairs.

 

 

At first when Jonghyun woke in the middle of the night, he wasn't sure why. A second later, an insistent banging on his apartment door gave him the answer.

Jonghyun groaned and rolled over, pressing the pillow over his ears. He tried to go back to sleep, but sat suddenly bolt upright when the front door burst open, hitting the wall with a bang.

“What the hell—” Jonghyun clambered out of bed. He wrenched open his bedroom door and found himself face to face with four armed soldiers.

“We're evacuating the area,” said the tallest one. “You are asked to come with us to a safe location. Take two minutes to gather a few belongings.”

Jonghyun thought about declining; but the look on the soldiers' faces seemed to imply that they weren't so much asking him to come as taking him with them no matter how he felt about it, so he grabbed a knapsack and after only a moment's hesitation—what belongings did one keep with them when evacuating during a war, anyway?—stuffed a change of clothes and an alarm clock in before following the tall soldier out.

 

 

The last person to enter the room was a short brunette who looked about Key's own age. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt, dark jeans, boots, and an expression that Key thought was inappropriately carefree, given the situation. He had his hands in his pockets, and Key wondered if he was doing it on purpose to make the muscles in his arms stand out; he scowled up at him from his place on the bed.

“Hi,” said the newcomer. “I'm Jonghyun.”

The two other men in the room nodded their greetings and introduced themselves, and then Jonghyun's eyes fell on Key.

“How about you?” he said after a beat, when Key still hadn't said anything. “Aren't you going to introduce yourself?”

“Key,” said Key.

Jonghyun tilted his head a bit and rocked back on his heels. “Nice to meet you,” he said. Then he nodded up at the bunk above Key's—the only empty bed left. “Looks like I'm going to be sleeping above you.”

 

 

Their room was at the end of the hall on the third floor of a concrete building on the outskirts of town. Outside, there was nothing but cracked asphalt and a tall chain-link fence, barbed wire in rows over the top, and past that, brittle yellow grass and scattered, abandoned brick buildings. Camouflage-bedecked soldiers stood guard at the gate and along the fence, rifles standing at attention at evenly-spaced points along the perimeter.

“I wonder if it's really safe,” commented Key one day, leaning on the sill of their tiny, square window.

“Probably not,” said Jonghyun. Key shot him his most lethal glare, but Jonghyun didn't seem to be fazed. He looked steadily at Key, and continued, “It's a war, and none of you are safe. Doesn't really matter where you go.”

Key thought it was a little funny, the way Jonghyun didn't include himself in his statement.

 

 

They became friends, of a sort, even with Key's misgivings about Jonghyun's constant nonchalance. It wasn't that Key particularly wanted Jonghyun as a friend, but there were few others close to Key's age, and there was the added convenience of their being roommates.

Those were the main reasons.

They turned out to be the same reasons that, on a dusty golden afternoon a couple of weeks later, when their roommates were, as they usually were during the day, nowhere to be found, Key agreed to Jonghyun's suggestion that they have sex.

“I'm bored,” Key had said.

“We could have sex,” was Jonghyun's reply.

Key stared incredulously at him, but only for a second. Then, almost without realizing it, he was saying, “Okay,” and scooting closer.

Jonghyun look fairly surprised, which probably meant he was about half as surprised as Key was at himself. He tried to cover this up by scowling and saying irritably, “What, you don't want to after all?”

Jonghyun reached out then, twisting a hand into the collar of Key's shirt. The tip of his tongue darted out, hungrily, for a split second before he said, “No, I do,” and pulled Key in.

They didn't kiss—not yet. Instead, Jonghyun bit down gently on the skin of Key's jaw, then trailed down the side of his neck to mouth at the sharply jutting angle of his collarbone. Key found himself fidgeting anxiously even as his breath hitched, catching just slightly in his throat. Jonghyun seemed to notice too; he made a vague disapproving sound—Key could feel the hum vibrating against his skin—and pushed Key down onto the bed before reaching for both of his hands, holding them still in the wrinkled sheets.

He kept that up for a while, lips mapping out invisible paths along Key's skin, until Key wiggled impatiently and huffed out a sigh, hands twitching against Jonghyun's grip. He let them go, and Key immediately pushed Jonghyun up before bending up into a sitting position. He shrugged out of his shirt, and Jonghyun watched with an appreciative gleam in his eyes as he did the same. They took a moment to pull off their pants as well, and then, clothing discarded, went back to what they were doing.

Jonghyun did kiss Key now; it was a kiss like the ebb and flow of the tide, thought Key, absently—gentle and teasing one moment, a mere brushing of lips; and the next, suddenly deep, pressing into each other's mouths to twine their tongues together.

A minute later, there was a slick finger pressing into him. He shifted his legs, spread them apart; Jonghyun's finger curled and pressed deeper inside, and Key moaned and wrapped a leg around Jonghyun's waist. Jonghyun added another finger, slid them both back and forth, brushing against that spot inside Key over and over again. Key dug his nails into Jonghyun's shoulders and threw his head back against the pillow, and Jonghyun kissed the exposed skin of his neck, licked away the sweat that was pooling in the dip at the base of his throat.

Jonghyun added another finger. Key panted and whined. “Jonghyun—god—just fuck me already,” he said, breathlessly.

Jonghyun pressed a final kiss to the underside of Key's chin and slipped all three fingers out.

Key had thought that Jonghyun would fuck like he did everything else—confident and mocking and teasing enough to be intolerably irritating.

He did—but it was also more, it was hard and fast and deep and so much better than Key had imagined. It was pressing Key back into the mattress, his legs slung over Jonghyun's shoulders, like it was the last day of their lives. It was fingers pressing into Key's thighs; it was Jonghyun slamming his hips forward, hitting all the right spots inside Key. It was spirals of pleasure more intense than anything Key had ever felt, deeper than he had ever been fucked before.

When they finished, Jonghyun pulled out and slumped down on his side, facing Key. Key was lying on his back, but he turned his head toward Jonghyun. Jonghyun shifted forward and kissed Key, once. Key wrinkled his nose. Suddenly the heat was too much for him, and he pushed Jonghyun away and shifted with a restless groan.

“God, I need a shower,” he said. Jonghyun laughed.

 

 

It became a bit of a regular occurrence. There wasn't much to do during the day except sit around wondering when they were all going to die. Most of the others in the safe house hung around in each other's rooms or in the common areas down in the basement, playing board games or exchanging stories, laughing forcedly through everything, but the thought of interacting with so many people, under the circumstances, made Key's stomach turn, so he stayed up in their room instead, and Jonghyun kept him company most of the time, especially after the first time they slept together.

Sometimes Jonghyun would start it. He'd look at Key, not saying anything, just tilting his head and giving a meaningful quirk of his eyebrows. Or he'd sprawl on his side beside Key, tiptoeing his fingers one by one over the soft cotton T-shirts Key would wear, over the ribs that protruded enough to feel easily, but not enough to show through the fabric, until Key sighed impatiently and rolled in close enough for Jonghyun to kiss him.

There were times when Key started it too, shyly, petulantly, poking stubbornly at Jonghyun's side with one finger until Jonghyun got his meaning and rolled them over to pin Key to the bed. Or, if Jonghyun didn't make a move after a couple of minutes of this, he'd scowl or pout. “Come on,” he'd say, and Jonghyun would reply, “Come on what?” He'd smirk annoyingly, and Key would push him backwards and swing a leg over to straddle him.

Afterwards, with the sun just about to set outside, Jonghyun would lounge in bed, propping himself up on one elbow as he smiled at Key's antics; Key would flit around the room, cracking the window, then, fanning with whatever he could find, he'd start to worry out loud about their roommates coming back to the smell of sex lingering in the air.

“Oh my god, get off your lazy ass and help me,” he'd say, swatting at Jonghyun's bare torso.

“Nah,” said Jonghyun, to Key's extreme annoyance. “What's the big deal anyway? It's not like they don't know we're doing it.”

“Oh my god,” Key said again. He sat down heavily on his bed. “Do you think they know? How would they know?” His breaths would start coming quicker as he fretted, until Jonghyun pulled him over again by the arm and distracted him with kisses—which, frankly, didn't help to calm his breathing down, but at least took his mind off his worries.

That was all it was about—taking his mind off his worries. Every touch, every kiss was just a welcome distraction from the war, from the world, from his own nervous fidgeting and anxiety. There was nothing more to this, and Key wasn't about to pretend there was. Jonghyun didn't seem to care either, which was kind of a relief—Key didn't really relish the idea of trying to explain to Jonghyun that he wasn't interested in starting anything that went beyond the simplicity of just sex.

But Jonghyun seemed to get it; Key assumed whatever they were doing was the same to Jonghyun as it was to himself—just a distraction, from war or life or boredom, Key guessed.

In the end it didn't matter; Key stopped thinking about it after a while, stopped letting his mind wander to topics that didn't matter and that he didn't want to think about, and just let himself bask in the pleasure of the moment as Jonghyun pressed him into the sheets. There was a war going on outside, but nothing mattered except fevered kisses and warm light streaming in through their lone, tiny window and spreading itself over the tangled bedsheets and their sweat-slick limbs.

 

 

Key wasn't quite asleep when the earth shaking beneath his bed woke him all the way up in an instant. Above him, the mattress dipped as Jonghyun sat up as well.

“What was that?” came a sleepy voice from the other side of the room.

Key swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pushed himself up. “I don't know,” he said, even though he did know; it was the sound of bombs hitting the earth, only a few miles away—what else could it be?

Sure enough, as Key peered through the slats of the dilapidated blinds, he could see bright spots in the darkness: fires burning in the distance. The ground shook again, and just before Key dropped instinctively to a crouching position, he saw new bright spots flare into life.

He scrambled away from the window, and the two men occupying the other bunk bed in the room took his place at the blinds. Only Jonghyun was still sitting cross-legged on his top bunk, looking unruffled by what was going on.

“What do we do?” asked Key, anxiously. He noticed his fingers flexing restlessly already, and clenched them into fists in the baggy fabric of his sweatpants. He looked up at Jonghyun for an answer; but Jonghyun just gazed down at him, evenly, for a long moment before shrugging one shoulder. Key felt his features twisting into an expression that was half a glare, half anguished disappointment, before running for the door.

There were already people in the hallway, some, like Key, just sticking their heads through the doorway to see what was going on. Others were running through the corridor, agitatedly; Key thought they looked a bit like startled chickens.

Presently, two uniformed men came down the stairs and into the hall, moving at a brisk pace. Key opened the door wider as they passed.

“We're moving to a safer location as soon as it's safe enough,” said the officer. “Wake anyone who's not up yet and tell them to be ready.”

With that, he hurried off, and Key stepped back into the room, looking around at the faces of his roommates, who were looking back at him. “We're being moved soon,” he said, and the others nodded. The two standing at the window wore identical expressions of nervous trepidation. Jonghyun alone was still sitting in bed, in the same position Key had left him in; one of his eyebrows was quirked up, and Key thought he saw a hint of a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. He ground his teeth together and looked away.

 

 

The sun was just beginning to creep up over the horizon when the uniformed soldiers came to collect them from their rooms. They were mostly silent, saying just enough to convey that everyone needed to go with them, _now_. They didn't apologize for waking them up so early. They didn't explain what was happening. But it didn't matter, because everyone already knew what was happening—or enough, anyway, that they didn't want to stay here, so close to last night's explosions, anymore—and because of that, no one had gotten back to sleep during the rest of the night anyway.

They went underground. It was awful—dark and dusty and cramped—but no one dared to complain. All they could think was, _maybe they won't find us here_. _Maybe we'll be safe here._

There were extensive natural caverns underneath that part of the city. A lot of them were too small to stand up in, and some were too small even to crawl through, but there were so many of them that, especially with the relatively small number of people in their group, each person was able to stake out an area away from the others, if they wanted to.

Jonghyun zigzagged through the tunnels for a while before finding a small cavern almost tall enough for him to stand up in and about twice as wide across. He dropped his knapsack to the half-dirt, half-stone ground, and then looked back to comment to Key on their new room, so to speak—only to realize that Key hadn't followed him in.

When Jonghyun stuck his head back out the opening to the cave, Key was standing there, face sullen, with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What, aren't you coming in?” asked Jonghyun. Key shot him a baleful glare. Jonghyun blinked at him for a moment, then retreated back inside with a shrug.

Key only lasted about ten minutes before he gave up and crawled into the cave, as Jonghyun had known he would. The thing was, he knew that Key couldn't stand being alone, and that Key felt terribly uncomfortable around almost everyone else who was with them, since he hadn't made too much of an attempt to get to know them, and that meant he had no choice but to stick to Jonghyun, no matter how annoyed he was with him at the moment.

As for why Key was annoyed—that, Jonghyun wasn't sure about, but he thought, as Key sat down gingerly against the wall and tucked his knees to his chest, that it didn't matter so long as Key stayed here with him.

 

 

Every time Jonghyun looked over at Key, the other boy was glaring at him. Jonghyun wasn't easily ruffled, but it was starting to get to him.

“What?” he asked, finally.

“How can you be so calm?” demanded Key. “There's a war going on and we're trapped underground and you're just lounging around like you're on vacation on some tropical island.”

“Well,” said Jonghyun after a beat, “we can't all be like you.” He nodded pointedly at Key's hands, nervously twining together and apart, together and apart again. Key looked down too, flushed red, and tucked his hands underneath his legs. Jonghyun turned away again. “Anyway, we're not trapped underground,” he said. “We've been generously been given living quarters in an underground shelter. It's for our own safety.” He frowned. “Although it is kind of inconvenient.”

Key kept his hands tucked firmly under his legs, but Jonghyun could still see the furious neurotic waggle of his fingers. Jonghyun could also see that Key was clenching and unclenching his jaw, and starting to rock back and forth.

“Just say it before you explode,” he said, amused.

Key exhaled sharply and turned away from Jonghyun. “Nothing,” he muttered. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Jonghyun shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

 

 

He knew Key would have to say it eventually, and the next morning—or Jonghyun supposed it could also be the next night; it was hard to keep track of time when you couldn't see the daily rise and fall of the sun—he did. After a few failed surreptitious glances and about the same number of openly curious stares, Key finally asked, “Aren't you worried about what's going to happen to us?”

Jonghyun cocked his head to one side. “Not really,” he said.

His nonchalance irritated a scowl out of Key. “I don't get it,” he said. “You're like me—you're all alone here. But you don't care whether you're going to survive? Whether your family and friends out there will survive? You don't care if you'll ever get another chance to see the people you love?”

Jonghyun stared for a moment. Then he said, simply, “I don't believe in love.”

Key didn't seem to know what to say to that; he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and then eventually sighed and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Jonghyun felt like he had said the wrong thing, but it wasn't like he could have told Key the truth.

 

 

They lost track of how long they were there; the only indication that time was passing was the lopsided ticking of Jonghyun's alarm clock, which no longer reliably kept time, and the slow surety with which food was running out.

It got to the point where they were down to just one lumpy, stale biscuit per person each day. Jonghyun watched as Key devoured his own, and then immediately looked mournful, like he wished he'd made it last longer. Jonghyun sighed and, like he had the past few days, handed his own share over to Key.

Key passed the hard biscuit from hand to hand; a couple of small pieces crumbled off and fell to the floor.

“Don't do that,” said Jonghyun. “Just eat it.”

“What about you?” Key broke the biscuit in half and held out one piece to Jonghyun, but Jonghyun only shook his head.

“Don't worry about me,” he said. “I don't need to eat that much anyway.”

 _Or at all,_ said Key, in his head; _I haven't seen you eat anything for days._ But—maybe because he was scared, or maybe because of something in Jonghyun's expression, or maybe just because Key really was hungry—he didn't say anything out loud.

 

 

There was a crash, and Jonghyun woke with a start. Key was not next to him; Jonghyun sat up and found that Key was standing a few feet away, kicking Jonghyun's alarm clock into the wall, over and over. Jonghyun got up and went to him.

“Key,” he said quietly, with a gentle touch to Key's arm. Key shuddered beneath his hand, and Jonghyun realized the other boy was crying. “Key,” Jonghyun said again; Key jerked away from his touch and sank to the floor in a slump. Jonghyun nudged aside the shattered remains of his clock and sat down beside him. 

“It wouldn't stop ticking,” Key said, after a moment. Jonghyun spread his arms, and Key folded himself into Jonghyun's embrace.

“I hate it here,” said Key. The words came out muffled against Jonghyun's chest. “I hate never being able to see the sun, and I hate always feeling hungry, and I hate not knowing when we're going to die!” He clenched his fists in the worn fabric of Jonghyun's shirt, and Jonghyun, not knowing what to say, stroked the back of Key's head as Key shuddered and shook.

“You broke my alarm clock,” he murmured, eventually. Key hit Jonghyun on the arm and let out a sound that may have been a choked laugh, may have been a strangled sob. Jonghyun buried his nose in Key's hair, and Key tightened his hold on Jonghyun's shirt.

 

 

“I might love you,” said Key.

 

 

“It's not that I don't believe in love,” said Jonghyun. “It's just that sooner or later, everyone I love dies.”

 

 

There was some kind of commotion in the main tunnels. From far away, the sounds of angry yelling reached their ears. Jonghyun looked over at Key; he was almost trembling with fright.

There were gunshots, then screaming. Key jumped, let out a strangled yelp, and scrambled over until he was close enough to grab Jonghyun's arm.

“Hey,” said Jonghyun softly, laying a hand over Key's, “it's going to be okay. We're pretty far off from everything else; they won't find us.”

 

 

The thing was, it wasn't just about the other side finding them—although of course that was a part of it. What Jonghyun didn't seem to realize—or maybe he did, and just didn't care—was that somewhere outside their little room deep in the tunnels, people were dying. These were people they'd been living with for months, and even if he didn't know any of them that well, Key felt sick knowing that, right this instant, they were being slaughtered by the enemy.

He felt even more sickened that Jonghyun apparently didn't feel any grief for them at all, that he didn't care about any of them as long as they weren't found. He'd already known, of course, had learned through all the time they'd spent together, that Jonghyun didn't feel any compunctions about doing things most people would shy away from doing, that he didn't seem bothered by things like war or death or hunger or pain, but this—this was almost too much.

Almost; the truth was—and Key's stomach turned even more as he admitted this to himself—he would overlook any fault of Jonghyun's if it meant Jonghyun would put up with him for one more minute, if it meant he could stay with Jonghyun and not be left behind.

 

 

They stayed huddled together in the dark, Key pressing his head against Jonghyun's chest and Jonghyun alternately stroking Key's hair and covering his ears, until the terrible noises outside died down. Jonghyun removed his hands from Key's ears and moved them instead to Key's shoulders, trying to quell their shaking as Key cried silently.

They stayed until Key's quiet sobbing died down, and then Key sat up a little, and Jonghyun pushed himself to his feet, mindful of the low ceiling. He reached a hand out to Key.

“Come on,” he said. “If they're gone—if it's over—we should get out of here.”

Key almost shook his head—even if they got out, wouldn't it be only more dangerous back above ground?—but they would only die here anyway, starve to death alone, in the dark, so he took Jonghyun's hand and followed him out to the tunnel outside their cave.

Everything was fine for a while; then the bodies started appearing. Scattered here and there, amidst pools of dark blood, were dead bodies, corpses of people they recognized and of men in unfamiliar uniforms. Key whimpered and tried not to look; Jonghyun steeled his expression and tightened his grip on Key's hand.

 

 

It happened when they were almost out. They could see daylight up ahead, just a few rays of light seeping in through the entrance of the tunnels, not even fifty yards ahead. Key sucked in a hopeful, excited breath and looked at Jonghyun with shining eyes. Jonghyun gave his hand an encouraging squeeze and tugged him forward.

“We're almost there,” he said, voice bright.

It was a mistake.

Somehow, so focused on the light up ahead, on finally getting out of this place, on freedom or something like it, they'd failed to notice the sound of footsteps approaching from the other direction. As Jonghyun spoke, there was a clatter, and they both whirled to see a man in enemy uniform, reaching for his gun as he dropped pilfered items to the floor.

“Don't move,” he said, warningly.

They didn't; they held perfectly still for ten seconds, but then Key whimpered and twitched, jerkily, reaching for Jonghyun's arm. The sound of the gun going off echoed off the walls.

Jonghyun shoved Key, hard, and Key stumbled back a few paces before falling to the ground. Jonghyun cried out, once, and dropped to his knees. The soldier holstered his gun, picked up what he'd stolen from the dead lying scattered throughout the caverns, and ran.

Jonghyun started to laugh, uncontrollably. It hurt; more blood squelched its way out of the wound, but Jonghyun didn't mind so much—if anything, it only made him laugh harder.

“Sorry you have to see me like this,” he said to an ashen-faced Key. “This has never happened to me before.”

“Jonghyun, don't,” started Key. He looked on the verge of tears. “We have to—you need—I'll get someone to help—”

“No, don't,” Jonghyun said sharply. “Just—just stay with me.” He reached out to Key, who hesitantly stepped forward, then sank to his knees beside Jonghyun. His hands hovered over Jonghyun's abdomen, as if wanting to fix him but not knowing how, or where to start. In the end, he reached for Jonghyun's shoulders instead, lifting him just enough for Key to sit down with Jonghyun's head pillowed in his lap.

“It hurts,” said Jonghyun, voice gone soft. Key stifled a whimper and threaded his fingers through Jonghyun's hair, stroking lightly. “It still hurts—it only ever hurt for a moment before.”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean, 'before?'”

“It was supposed to go away,” ground out Jonghyun, gritting his teeth against the pain. He let out a shaky breath. “It always closed up again when I—when I got shot before.”

“What are you talking about,” Key said again. It came out sounding flat, more like a statement than a question.

“Key, I have to tell you something,” whispered Jonghyun. He reached up blindly, and Key tangled their fingers together. Jonghyun struggled to take a deep breath, then continued. “I know you think I'm your age, but I'm—I'm almost five hundred years old. I haven't aged since I was twenty, and I can't—or at least I couldn't—get hurt.”

Key was crying now; his skin glowed pale white in streaks where the tears washed away the dirt of the past weeks. “Oh my god, you're delirious,” he was saying. “Don't talk, Jjong, you're not making any sense.” He tried to cover Jonghyun's mouth, but Jonghyun stopped him.

“There's something else I need to tell you,” he said. His voice was barely audible now; Key leaned in, but still only caught one word: “...you.”

“What?” he asked. “I what?” Jonghyun didn't reply, and Key shook him lightly. “What about me, Jonghyun?” 

But it was no use; Jonghyun didn't answer—he couldn't answer. His chest had stopped its heaving, and his hand had gone limp in Key's.

Key bent his head down and cried.

 

 

The war was over.

The war was over, and Key was trying desperately not to remember. There were a lot of things he wished he could forget; on this particularly morning, as he made his way home under the still-dark skies after a night spent in various bars, not remembering, there were two things in particular that he was avoiding. He didn't want to remember the fact that he was now two years older than he'd been the last time he'd walked freely through the city. He also didn't want to remember Jonghyun—Jonghyun grinning with inappropriate nonchalance, Jonghyun dancing his fingertips over Key's skin, Jonghyun lying limply in Key's arms, muttering nonsensically about immortality.

Then footsteps sounded behind him, and the realization that someone was following him, in the dark, with the streets still and silent and empty, made it suddenly very easy for both of these things to fall away, finally, from Key's thoughts. He turned, revolving slowly on his heel.

The war was over, but it was still dangerous. People had lost everything, and too many were desperate to get something back. Key should have remembered this, he thought mournfully, as he found himself face to face with a haggard man wearing dark, loose clothing and a wild expression and pointing a gun at Key.

“Your wallet,” said the man, voice low and rough.

“Holy shit,” squeaked Key. Then he cleared his throat and said, in a voice that was shaky but at least at a normal pitch, “I don't have anything.”

“Don't lie to me!” The gun shook violently; Key swallowed nervously.

“I'm serious,” he said. “There is literally no money left in my wallet.” He reached inside his pocket.

Evidently, it was a bad idea. Key's movement seemed to alarm his attacker, who let out a wordless yell. His fingers trembled; Key watched as if from afar as the finger on the trigger jerked inward. The muzzle of the gun lifted slightly and the man took one stumbling step backwards.

Key stumbled backwards too, and after a moment, he realized it was because the bullet had hit him in the chest. He gasped and put his hands to the wound—only there was no wound; in fact, now that the pang from the initial impact was fading, there was not even any pain.

He looked down, fingers still probing around for the hole the bullet had left, but there was nothing. Not exactly nothing—there was a hole in the t-shirt he was wearing—but beneath that, nothing but clean, unbroken skin. Nothing to indicate that the hole in his shirt had appeared due to anything out of the ordinary; nothing to indicate that he'd just been shot, not even a speck of blood dotting the white fabric.

There was a clattering sound, and Key looked up to see that the man had dropped his gun. He staggered backwards, one arm extended and shaking, pointing at Key. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a moment. Then, abruptly, he executed a half-turn half-trip that ended with him on the floor, scrabbling for his gun, before stumbling to his feet and running, full speed, away into the dark.

“Holy shit,” managed Key, after a minute. He sank to the pavement, heavily, hands still toying uselessly with the perfect round hole in his shirt. A million thoughts raced through his head, too fast for Key to really comprehend any of them. Eventually, one managed to settle in over the others.

Jonghyun had been telling the truth: he had been immortal after all. And now, somehow, for some reason, he wasn't. And Key was.

He shuddered and pressed his head to his knees, but did not cry. He had a feeling there'd be time enough for that in the centuries to come.


End file.
